


Double Vision

by aerClassic



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Implied Character Death, M/M, Mixed with Alternate Universe(s), Non AU, extremely meta, references to my own fics because why not at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-06 12:29:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20291482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerClassic/pseuds/aerClassic
Summary: Someone once said: if you travel far enough, you will eventually meet yourself.Hongjoong...doesn't think this is what they meant.





	Double Vision

**Author's Note:**

> big thank you to [oreob1tch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oreob1tch/pseuds/oreob1tch) for helping with a plot device <3

When they make it back to the dorm after several hours of grueling dance practice, the last thing Hongjoong expects to see sitting on the couch of the commons area is another version of himself, clad in a pair of oil stained overalls still smoldering at the edges, eating a bag of chips from Seonghwa’s secret stash. The him on the couch grins at where the members are clustered in the doorway and wiggles his fingers in a cutesy wave. Jongho, the only person directly behind him with a clear line of sight to the imposter, makes a distressed noise and clutches hard at his elbow.

Hongjoong slowly and _carefully_ closes the door.

“Jongho?”

“Yes, hyung?”

“Did you see him too?”

“Yes, hyung.”

“Okay,” he can hear Jongho very quietly start to hyperventilate. Hongjoong turns around to the other members and tries to say “Hey, guys? There’s another me in there and Seonghwa is going to kill him. Me. Him and me” but all that manages to come out is a panicked gurgle that sounds a bit like “hnrgh” or the vocal equivalent of all the air being let out of a balloon at once. Jongho catches him when his legs give out, no doubt saving him from a week of tender knees and a possible concussion. 

Not for the first time Hongjoong thinks their maknae is his favorite person.

“Can we act out the dramas later? Just open the door so we can shower, I’m so tired.” San whines, leaning heavily against an equally sweaty Wooyoung. The others are giving Jongho and Hongjoong looks ranging from mild concern (Yeosang) to ‘what the actual fuck is wrong with you people’ (Seonghwa). Normally Hongjoong would call them out for being shitty, but, like, there’s a clone in the room behind him. There is officially no more normal _ anything _ as far as he’s concerned.

“Well if you guys aren’t going to open the door, then I will,” Mingi pushes passed them to go through the doorway—ignoring Jongho’s panicked “Hyung no!”—and walks in. 

Hongjoong hears an enthusiastic, “Mingi-yah! You’ve still got the long hair, that’s so cool!” followed by the thump of what is undoubtedly Mingi collapsing in the entryway. Everyone freezes in place. 

Yunho whispers, “Wait that sounded like—”

Jongho makes a noise like he’s trying not to go into hysterics and failing.

Hongjoong pats Jongho’s hand where it’s still clamped hard around his elbow. “Let me go, Jongho-yah, I need to check and make sure Mingi didn’t knock himself out.”

Finally released, Hongjoong takes a deep breath, leans his head in, and—yep. Other him is still there on the couch, though he’s actually stopped the smoldering of his overalls, so that’s...progress, Hongjoong supposes. Mingi is sitting on his haunches and rubbing at his eyes like that will somehow make the person sitting in front of them disappear.

“It’s okay,” Hongjoong’s doppelganger announces from his perch. “You can come in, I’m not going to hurt anybody.”

Hongjoong would like to disagree because his brain fucking _ kills _ right now but he waves everyone in regardless. 

San screams.

Other him already has his hands over his ears to block the noise, still grinning, and visibly perks up when the last person—Yunho—makes it into the dorm commons. Hongjoong feels his eye twitch, whether in annoyance or from the impending aneurysm he’s not sure. More than likely the latter has already happened and this is just his own personal hell come to torture him.

“I always forget how cute everyone looks when they’re young,” Other Hongjoong leans a cheek on one hand to sigh fondly. “Anyway, hi!” Various distrustful hellos echo through the room.

"Hyung," Wooyoung laughs and nudges him in the side. "You never told us you had a twin!"

Hongjoong shoves him back with a scowl. "Because I _don't_ have a twin. I have zero idea who the fuck that is or why he has my face."

San pinches Hongjoong on the arm. “Ow! What the fuck, San?”

“I’m trying to see if this is real or not.”

“Then pinch him, not me!” Hongjoong frowns and rubs the tender area. 

“Technically, I am you,” The second Hongjoong pipes up. 

“You shut the hell your mouth.” Jongho replies.

Hongjoong slaps the rigid line of Jongho's back, "What did we say about the memes, maknae?"

The imposter snorts laughter into his fist. Yeosang, ever the polite dongsaeng, is the first to walk close enough to reach a hand out for him to shake, “Are you really...Hongjoong-ssi?”

“Yep!” The clone answers and grips Yeosang’s hand tight, shakes it hard once. The others walk further into the room in fits and starts until they’re all in a cluster at other Hongjoong’s feet—questions getting fired off faster than his..._ whatever _ can answer. Seonghwa makes a fuss at the empty chip packet, but Yeosang and San both hold their hands over his mouth to get him to calm down. Or suffocate him. Mingi is poking at other Hongjoong’s hair, cut short and side swept in the front and so unlike his current party in the back ‘do.

Yunho is the only one who hangs back with him in the doorway, cautious in the face of this bizarre situation. 

Yunho leans down a bit, “Hyung, should we call a manager? The police?” Hongjoong just shakes his head because, honestly, he doesn’t know. The police would at best hang up if someone called saying “hey a clone of myself is sitting in my living room eating someone else’s chips can you fix that for me” and at worst send a crew to collect him to the nearest psych ward. Their managers would probably do about the same. They don’t have a whole lot of options.

Other him is watching the two of them with an amused quirk to his mouth. It makes Hongjoong want to grab all of them up and run screaming in the opposite direction, not stopping until the eight of them are safely on the other side of the country.

“Okay, how about this,” Hongjoong-the-fake claps his hands to get the group to stop talking over each other, “You look like you’ve just finished some kind of workout, right? Go get your showers and I’ll answer all your questions when you get finished. Not like I’m going anywhere.” 

“Whoa,” Wooyoung slaps his thighs while laughing, “He really is our Hongjoong-hyung, he even bosses us around!”

“And I’ll put up with Jongho glaring at me until you guys finish.” The other Hongjoong offers magnanimously. 

Jongho huffs, arms crossed where he leans against an opposite wall. “Good because I don’t trust you.” 

Their maknae is the only sane person in this group, Hongjoong appreciates him _ so much_. 

Yunho starts tugging him away by the sleeve, making sure to block the sight of smirking clone-or-possibly-a-demon with his body on their way down the hall. 

Hongjoong ignores the stupid little thrill that zips through his veins when Yunho returns his awkward, uncomfortable, _ thankful _ smile with a hug. He’s been trying to ignore it a lot lately. In all honesty, Hongjoong may have more than one problem on his hands—protocol for dealing with idiotic crushes wasn’t necessarily covered in their idol training other than ‘hey don’t fuck around but, if you do, don’t get caught’. 

Somehow, Hongjoong doesn’t think that applies to members of your own group.

“I can’t imagine what’s going through your head right now but you should at least have the first shower, hyung. We’ll get this figured out.” Yunho gives him one last squeeze, boyish grin in place, before trotting off to his own room. 

\-------------------

Fresh from the shower, Hongjoong makes his way to the living room where Jongho and Mingi are in deep discussion sitting on the floor in front of an amused looking clone. San and Wooyoung, both wet from the shower they obviously shared, divebomb themselves on either side of the imposter and start asking rapid fire questions.

To his credit, the other Hongjoong only laughs and tells them, “I’ll answer whatever questions you have as soon as everyone gets back.”

Hongjoong grabs a chair from around the dining table and sits as far as he can reasonably get away with from the potentially crazed murderer without being considered in the next room. He can see the front door from here and briefly considers propping it open in case they all need a hasty exit.

It’s _ strange _ watching...himself interact with the members gathered. He tries to ignore the way his clone’s eyes trail after Yunho when he makes his entrance a few minutes later—hair laid flat from water and dripping down the back of his shirt—before sitting on the floor in front of Hongjoong’s legs like a barrier.

Yeosang is the last one to join the group and easily goes to sit in Seonghwa’s lap when Seonghwa slaps his thighs in invitation. The visitor’s eyes narrow the slightest bit at the interaction but it’s there and gone so quick Hongjoong dismisses it as a trick of the light.

Bolstered by the presence of his pseudo-brothers, Hongjoong inhales a steadying breath to finally have the courage to ask, “If you’re actually me and not some extremely creepy dude with a lot of plastic surgery, how are you _ here_?”

“The front door was unlocked.” 

“Oh ha, ha, very funny,” Hongjoong mocks sarcastically. “The actual answer please.”

Hongjoong’s headache is slowly morphing into a migraine. Any minute now he’s going to wake up from this nightmare and find out he’s just passed out in the middle of the practice room floor or something; maybe this elaborate hallucination is just the product of one too many Star Trek marathons when he’s alone at 3 AM. Maybe—and this is the most likely scenario—Seonghwa finally got fed up with cleaning Hongjoong’s mess in their room all the time and finally made good on the promise to poison his sports drink before practice. Anything at all would be better than the sight of another version of himself bouncing slightly in place on their horribly scratchy couch.

“Well, the multiverse theory states there’s an infinite number of universes parallel to our own, or _ your _ own in this case, and I’m from one of those.” His clone makes annoyingly enthusiastic jazzhands. “And I built a multidimensional traveling device to visit!”

Hongjoong watches the others fawn over this strange man and his traveling device which still remains to be seen. After Wooyoung’s amazed, “Whoa! So you’re actually really smart!” and Seonghwa’s desperately curious, “Do you have _actual_ Gundams in your universe?”, Hongjoong bites out, “That doesn’t explain why you’re _ here _of all places.”

“He _ just _ said he’s here to visit,” Mingi pouts, half hanging from the second Hongjoong like a limpet because he’s too trusting by half.

He feels Yunho’s grip around his ankle tighten just the smallest amount as Hongjoong mulls over his next question. A silent show of support. “But why _ this _ universe? And if you’re really here just to visit, then why hang around an _ idol dorm _ when you could be out _ there _ seeing the world?”

There’s a long moment where low murmurs of agreement circle through the gathering in the living room. 

“It’s complicated.” Other him answers quietly after a pause. “I’m on a mission to...find something—someone—that I lost in my universe and I need to get him back. I _have_ to get him back.” He leans forward to rest his chin atop a curled fist. Hongjoong watches a dark smudge on the bridge of his nose crinkle with his skin as he cringes like he's holding back barely contained grief. “So far _ this _ place has the most potential.”

Hongjoong doesn’t miss the way the man’s eyes briefly flit down to Yunho’s position by his feet and tenses. No.

Jongho is the first to break the uncomfortable silence. “Who are you looking for?”

The smile that graces the man’s mouth is a trembling, devastating thing. Almost as devastating as—

“My other half,” his voice cracks, “My _ everything_.”

Yunho’s grip goes tight, almost too tight to the point Hongjoong’s toes begin to tingle from the lack of blood flow. Mingi and San both descend on the shivering, weeping mess of man on their couch to coo sympathetic phrases into his shoulders and rub the shuddering line of the imposter’s back. Wooyoung, Seonghwa, and Jongho—bless them—all start tearing up, though Seonghwa tries to hide his ugly tears in the back of Yeosang’s hoodie. 

Hongjoong doesn’t trust it—doesn’t trust _ him_, not in the slightest. This could all be an act, a cleverly disguised sasaeng trying to dig up dirt or steal their underwear or any number of equally fucked up idiotic things saesangs get up to. Before he can voice his concerns, Yunho beats him to the punch.

“I don’t believe you,” Yunho stands to his full height with his fists loosely clenched by his side. “None of this makes sense, where’s this 'universe traveling device' you've been talking about? Prove that you’re from some alternate universe by leaving and coming back.”

The crying theatrics stop almost immediately. 

“You want me to leave?”

It’s spoken in a harsh whisper that makes the hair on the back of Hongjoong’s neck stand on end. Yunho takes a step backwards almost into Hongjoong’s knees and teeters on the edge of slumping into his lap before righting himself with the curve of Hongjoong’s shoulder. “Uh, _ and _ come back.” 

Yunho, obviously unnerved by the glint in the clone boy’s eyes, inches around until he’s behind Hongjoong’s chair like a child hiding behind his mother. Second Hongjoong seems to consider the option before standing, and in a few short strides stands across from him less than an arm’s length away.

Wasn’t there something about not coming into contact with your clone or else the world explodes? Sweat starts beading on his forehead the closer this version of himself leans in, one hand reaching into a pocket of his overalls. “If you want me to leave,” the man smiles sweetly as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, “I’ll leave.” 

He pulls out a tiny little rectangular box with a metallic sheen and a flat screen, similar to Hongjoong’s cellphone though about four times thicker and a billion times more menacing. Hongjoong watches him touch several places before suddenly there’s a box touching the center of his chest, a sucking sensation that starts where the metal presses in and in until all he sees is a blinding white light. The last thing he hears is a jaunty, “Bye, ‘me’” and the last echoing screams of his group members.

**\-------------------**

Hongjoong comes to lying on the floor with his shirt gently smoking and what sounds like someone coughing up a lung in the distance. Or, no, not in the distance—that’s him coughing as his lungs spasm. There’s another sound, a rasping cadence as someone is attempting to wave away the acrid smoke.

“Hongjoong? Is that you?” 

A familiar voice. Hongjoong manages to gasp out, “Seonghwa?”

“Thank god, it is you!” Hongjoong can just barely squint through the foggy haze of smoke to see an older, dark haired Seonghwa leaning over him. “Did you finally stop trying to—oh,” The elation in his voice quickly turns sour. Disappointed. “I guess he found one.”

“Found one what?” Hongjoong slaps away the proffered hand, sitting up and standing under his own power unless this Seonghwa turns out to be trickster too. “Where the _ hell _ am I?”

It’s a semi-sterile white room filled with gigantic computer screens and a pile of what seem to be machine parts in a corner. Definitely not the dorm. 

The Seonghwa of wherever the fuck this is looks tired, exhaustion etched into every line of his face and dragging purpling bruises below each eye. Even with his broad shoulders he seems to be drowning in a white lab coat smudged with oil stains. His voice is a low monotonous drone when he recites, “A research facility beneath Neo-Seoul, a conglomerate of science houses focusing on the steady march towards unification of life on earth and beyond.” He drags a hand down his face. “That’s the motto, anyway. We all mostly just fuck around and build battle-bots.”

“Cool. Awesome,” Hongjoong grunts. “How do I get back?”

Seonghwa’s lips thin. “Are you hungry?”

It’s so out of left field that all Hongjoong can do is gape his mouth open like a fish.

“What?”

“Are you hungry, yes or no?”

Well. He did just sort of finish an intense dance practice, he could destroy a cup ramen right now. Begrudgingly, he admits, “I could eat.”

“Good,” Seonghwa rolls out a chair for him to sit in and goes to an open panel on the wall Hongjoong is just now noticing. A plain sandwich materializes after a moment that Hongjoong takes with a suspicious sniff. If Seonghwa is offended, he doesn’t show it, and holds his hand out. “The portal, if you would be so kind.”

Through a mouthful of really excellent ham on rye—or at least what tastes like ham on rye considering it phased into existence literally ten seconds ago—Hongjoong muffles, “The what?”

“The portal. Uh, box like thing about yea big,” Seonghwa mimes the size and shape with both hands. About the size of an iphone. “It had to have come with you or else you’d just be space dust instead of sitting here eating.”

A cursory pat of his pockets later, Hongjoong finds the device _ other _ Hongjoong stuck to him blinking ominously beneath a cracked screen and hands it over. Seonghwa accepts it with a curse, rolls away towards a long bench-type desk to do something fiddly with the innards that takes three magnifying glasses stacked together for him to see.

“Who was he looking for?” Seonghwa jumps and knocks his forehead on a desk lamp. “Sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Seonghwa sighs. “He’s looking for a replacement of his husband. We lost him on the first trial run of the portal.”

The last of the sandwich goes down dry. 

“Husband?” Hongjoong croaks.

Seonghwa eyes him warily. “I take it there’s a man named Yunho in your universe? Most of the time tall and a little goofy, likes to make people laugh more than he likes to do his job.” Seonghwa pauses with a considering noise in the back of his throat. “Could be a woman. Come to think of it, with the multiverse theory and everything, there could be any number of different gender presenting iterations that—”

“Stop, please,” Hongjoong clutches at his head. Husband. His _ husband _ . He married _ Jeong Yunho_. “Wait what do you mean you ‘lost’ him? Did he get sucked into the wrong universe or something?”

“No,” Seonghwa says harsh, turns back to jab a soldering iron particularly hard into the device. Portal. Whatever. Hongjoong winces in some weird sympathy for the inanimate object. “The portal malfunctioned and stayed in place while Yunho...didn’t. He turned into space dust right before our eyes from the interdimensional friction ripping him apart. Hongjoong has never quite been the same since then,” his voice is raw, an obviously picked over wound that’s never been allowed to heal. “He’s obsessed with trying to find a Yunho that’s unattached he can bring back with him to pick up where they left off.”

There’s...not a lot Hongjoong can say to that. “That’s not healthy.”

Seonghwa makes a snorting sound he thinks is agreement. The soldering iron hisses in the quiet of the room for a while before Seonghwa sets it down again. “What would _ you _ do?”

He considers the visual for half a second. Yunho, smiling happy dongsaeng he lo-_likes _ so much, pressing a button and turning to dust as if he’s an extra in a Marvel movie. Hongjoong also considers how fast he’d try to tear the world apart to bring him back. “I can...sort of see where he’s coming from.”

“Figures. You’re all the same,” Seonghwa snorts, self deprecating laugh falling from his mouth. The soldering iron makes a low sizzle again and the portal device beeps urgently as if it can feel every burning mark against its chassis. 

Hongjoong doesn’t know how to take this version of Seonghwa. Older by who knows how many years and so _ sad _ . Something about the first interaction twigs in his brain and he thinks, _ oh fuck_. “You love him.” The man visibly pales. “The Hongjoong of this place, you’re in love with him.”

The man’s shoulders slump forward before he turns just enough to make eye contact, stricken expression in place. “How’d you guess?”

“A feeling.” Hongjoong thinks back to the narrow eyed grimace directed at his Seonghwa and Yeosang doing their usual canoodling. He chews the inside of his cheek “If it makes you feel any better, I think your Hongjoong isn’t too far off.”

“It doesn’t matter. He has his obsession and I’ll never be a replacement for his be-all-end-all love of his life.” Seonghwa clicks the pieces of the device back together with steady hands. Steadier than his voice at any rate. “There’s no room for me there.”

“I’m not saying you’d be a _ replacement_,” Hongjoong looks to the ceiling. He’s never been good at handling emotional problems like this or at giving advice, but something about this Seonghwa—who is super nice and obviously a catch if he works in a fancy lab—makes him want to make an attempt. “But I still think you should tell him. You should try.”  
  
“And you should stop being so nosy,” Seonghwa sniffs. “Alright, my Hongjoong had a running list of potential coordinates, let’s see if we can narrow down which one will send you home.”

**\-------------------**

The first place he lands seems to be the edge of a college campus populated entirely by decaffeinated zombies and bright eyed first years making their way to class. He pops into existence between two brick buildings shielded from the public view. A good thing considering his shirt sleeve is sort of _ on fire _—

“Shit, fuck,” Hongjoong hisses and bats at the tiny flame before it can actually burn his arm. Seonghwa of whatever universe it was made it look so effortless to jump without all the mathematical mumbo-jumbo giving his clothing wicked friction burns.

Wherever he’s landed is definitely not his Seoul. According to the machine, a timer is already ticking down from a three hour recharge. It’s a clear day, he’s probably not going to have to find shelter from some terrifying weather event, so Hongjoong supposes there’s not any harm in venturing out into the campus proper to stretch his legs.

Part of him feels sympathetic to his other self’s plight. That Hongjoong had been so excited to try out this new technology he thought they’d all perfected only for it to backfire and steal away his—

God, if anything happened to the Yunho of his own universe Hongjoong would be inconsolable. He probably wouldn’t go half insane trying to find another Yunho to replace him with, but that’s none of his business.

Between the student center and the library, Hongjoong gets waved over by an excited looking guy wearing a beanie carrying around oversized headphones. “Yo! Hongjoong-ssi, man, that gig Saturday night was cool as shit. When did you come up with that second verse?”

“Uh,” Hongjoong casts around for the most likely answer. “It just sort of came to me after a while.”

The guy gives him a thumbs up. “Well whatever you’re doing, keep it up. I can’t wait to see what you and Mingi are going to pull out of your asses for the end of the year bash.”

Like every other college kid, the guy wanders off when someone yells about an open game of frisbee golf in the quad.

The rest of his visit goes about the same. Two guys give him enthusiastic high fives over whatever it is he rapped on stage, a girl wearing all holographic clothing reflecting the afternoon sun almost blinds him with her wide smile, and a gaggle of whooping frat boys all crowd around him to congratulate him on his latest award. Before they leave, one turns to call back, “Hey, your boyfriend at the coffee shop looks sad, go hug him or something!”

Fear tingles down his neck from the booming sound of the frat brother’s voice, but no one gives him a sideways glance. No one shoots disgusted faces at him. Everyone just continues on their way to class or back to their dorm or to that open frisbee golf tournament.

Hongjoong isn’t sure if this a symptom of an accepting atmosphere from a bunch of similarly aged peers or if this universe doesn’t have the prejudice against homosexuals that his own harbors.

Either way the group wanders off leaving Hongjoong to grope around for a bench or something to hold himself up while his legs shake, barely keep him upright. 

He stays there slumped into a bench for long, endless minutes while his face burns in embarrassment. He’s never confessed to anyone about his preferences: not his mother, not his brother, not Seonghwa—even when his hyung started weeping gently about Yeosang’s birthmark that one time they snuck drinks into their room. 

“Hongjoong-oppa!” A woman with a short bob and a cute, dimpled smile bounces up to him. “Have you talked to Yunho today? He was being really mopey earlier at the shop, even the croissants are sad.”

“Ah,” He bashfully rubs sweat slicked hands against his jeans. “N-not yet.”

“Well you need to go do _ something _ about him before someone else comes along and steals him away.” She gives him a wink. “Hey, do you have the notes from our English class yesterday? I swear, the professor keeps saying he’s going to upload the damn things and never actually does.”

Sweat beads at his hairline. Hell, he has no idea what she’s talking about. Or who she is, for that matter. Shot in the dark, Hongjoong laughs and replies, “Maybe if you actually went to class you wouldn’t have to rely on online notes all the time.”

The woman huffs at him, but the slant of her mouth is amused. “You’re probably right.” 

She gets called away by another girl, taller than Hongjoong by several inches, yelling for her at the entrance to a building only a few feet away. Hongjoong exchanges a nod and sighs in relief when he doesn’t have to come up with a bullshit excuse as to why he has no clue what notes he’s supposed to have taken.

Thirty minutes to reset, Hongjoong sets off in the direction of the campus coffee shop in the hope his credit card works or what little cash he has on hand will buy him something decent. Or an apparently sad croissant. 

Through the window, he notices the familiar side profile of himself waiting patiently in line for the register and ducks behind a nearby bush so as not to be noticed. They seem to be about the same age in the universe, with the same lengthy mullet curling at their nape—makes sense that he’d be recognized here without someone making an odd comment about his new hairdo or looking somehow different.

A dark haired San works the register and someone who looks suspiciously like Wooyoung is mixing a smoothie at an industrial blender behind him. Hongjoong watches himself wave at the two familiar faces, Wooyoung offering a smiling thumbs up while San smirks and yells at someone in the back. 

The someone in the back is Yunho. An equally smiley, happy faced Yunho who ruffles his hair in his haste to remove his apron. San moves aside to allow Yunho space at the shop counter and—

Hongjoong watches himself lean over to meet Yunho in the middle for an easy-as-you-please closed mouth kiss in the center of a busy coffee shop. The Yunho of this universe gently touches that Hongjoong’s cheek like he’s something precious and breakable, tucking stray strands of hair over the curve of his doppelganger’s ear.

His heart aches something fierce. Hongjoong yearns for that easy intimacy, to be able to share that kind of love so openly and without shame of what the public would think of him...of them. Something burns in his gut when he thinks that even if—_ when _—he makes it home, if by some miracle Yunho feels the same way, he and Yunho can never have this. 

They can never kiss in the middle of a coffee shop without someone snapping photos to sell to gossip sites or shaming them online.

The buzzer for the reset sounds and Hongjoong slams the indicating light as fast as possible, too eager to leave.

**\-------------------**

The second trip through the portal gun makes his skin tingle with heat. Hongjoong isn’t sure if that’s a bad sign or not, but he’s still stupidly glad to be out of that sucking blinding white space of nothing that he isn’t going to complain. He goes about checking to make sure all his limbs are still attached, hair unmolested and unsinged, god only knows the stylist noonas would have his hide if anything happened to his meticulously grown and coiffed mullet.

He’s so distracted by checking himself over that he forgets to actually look where he’s landed until—

“Who the fuck are you?”

Hongjoong jerks at the sound of the aggressive voice. An aggressive _ familiar _ voice. “Yunho?”

A slightly taller than he’s used to Yunho is eyeing him warily from a doorway with a hand held behind his back. He seems to be in the middle of a different yet similar dorm to the one he’s woken up in for the last year and a half, which means the wrong universe—_damn_. “Who are you and why do you look like Hongjoong?” 

“Uh,” before he can really explain himself, Hongjoong is interrupted by the sound of multiple bodies running down the hallway. 

Jongho is the first around the bend, followed by the rest of the group members and—jesus christ does this feel like deja vu—a younger looking version of himself rubbing at his eyes. Jongho shoves himself between the members and Hongjoong. “Yunho, who is that?”

“No idea, hyung,” Yunho answers. Oh _ hell _ no, Hongjoong isn’t going to stick around in a universe where _ Jongho _ is the oldest; he’d never survive. “Hongjoong-ie, you don’t have a secret twin you forgot to tell us about do you?”

This younger iteration cuddles close to Yunho’s side. “No, hyung.” Oh fuck. Oh shit, that’s—Hongjoong manfully resists the urge to scream. Hearing ‘hyung’ come out of this person’s mouth with his voice is like staring into a topsy-turvy carnival mirror while someone else comes up behind him to bash him in the skull with a hammer. No. No way.

Hongjoong’s face heats anyway.

“Listen, I can explain and I swear I’m not here to hurt anybody”—there’s that deja vu again—“I’m just trying to get home to my _ own _ universe.” Hongjoong checks the timer of the portal device, ten minutes. He flashes the ticking timer, “See? I’m only here for a few minutes and then poof!”

“Holy shit, he’s got a bomb!” Someone screams. It sounds like Wooyoung.

“It’s not a _ bomb_,” Hongjoong rolls his eyes. At least the dramatics were all the same. “You’re overreacting.”

Jongho glares at him. “And you’re _ underreacting_. I don’t trust you.”

“Oh my god, Jongho,” Hongjoong pinches the bridge of his nose. “I bet you’re the same bossy maknae in every universe.”

Jongho grabs a chair from the kitchen table and directs him to sit while the rest of the members filter out to stand in a semi-menacing circle around him. It doesn't work when Park Seonghwa is glaring at him while his cheeks still puff with barely there baby fat. “Now I _ really _ don’t trust you. Seonghwa is the maknae.”

Hongjoong can’t help it, he snorts ugly cackling laughter into his palms. “I cannot wait to tell hyung about this. He’s going to _ flip_.”

His younger self pipes up, “I can’t imagine calling Seonghwa ‘hyung’, that’s weird.” Everyone ignores the angry, “Screw you too, hyung!” snarked from across the circle.

“This whole situation is weird,” Hongjoong mutters. Five minutes to cooldown. “Better than calling him ‘oppa’, I can tell you that.”

Hongjoong watches the Yunho of this universe nudge tinier Hongjoong. “You’ve called me ‘oppa’ before.”

A collective groaning circles around the room while his younger self goes vibrantly red. Yeosang grouses, “Yah! What did we say about too much information? Keep that shit to yourselves for _ once _ in your _ lives_.”

Yunho only laughs and pulls his boyfriend into his lap. “You guys are no fun.”

Hongjoong watches them giggle and tangle their legs together while jealousy burns bright in his gut. He wants that. He wants that _ so much_.

“So why are you here?” Jongho sighs, the very image of a put upon leader trying to wrangle a bunch of rambunctious kids. 

“It’s a long story.”

“You’ve got time,” Jongho gestures to the blinking timer. “Clearly.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Hongjoong replies, helpless. “It’s a little fantastical.”

“I’m sitting here staring at myself with a mullet. I think we can believe a little bit of your story.” Hongjoong’s counterpart frowns. “Why do you have a mullet?”

“Don’t you dare insult my hairdo, this thing is my baby,” Hongjoong scowls back, one hand reaching behind himself to pat the length at his nape a little defensively. “But basically I’m here because this universe was on the list of another..._me _ that’s on a mission to find someone. He tricked me into switching places with him.”

“How do we know you’re not going to do the same?” Jongho asks, voice taking on a hard edge. A harder edge. Hongjoong feels a little proud.

“Number one, I wouldn’t want to call any of you ‘hyung’ if my life depended on it,” Hongjoong laughs. “Number two, I have a Yunho to go back to and he _ doesn’t_.”

He says it a little meanly without thinking. Aggravation at being pulled away from his home and his potential to someday maybe consider admitting he likes Yunho to his face taken away. It might have been twenty years down the line but at least he had the _ option_.

“His Yunho is...gone?” Young Hongjoong’s whisper is near inaudible. Hongjoong awkwardly looks away from the intense hand holding happening. 

“Yeah.” Thankfully, Hongjoong is saved from explaining anything else by the timer letting him know it’s ready to send him to the next line of coordinates coded in. He’d probably end up crying thinking about that heavy loss mixing with the intense, aching homesickness—he wonders if this is what that first Seonghwa feels every time he watches his Hongjoong flit away in some desperate search of someone so irreplaceable. 

His fingers hover over the portal. Hongjoong takes a deep breath, and with a final, “Be good to each other,” he’s gone.

**\-------------------**

The third time is, unfortunately, not the charm. 

Hongjoong has appeared in the middle of a gigantic penthouse with marble flooring. Whoever owns it has _ taste _, or at least more money than they know what to do with because he recognizes several Hermès bags stacked against the wall. 

He also notices the business end of a letter opener being held to his throat by a person at his back. That’s a new one. Hongjoong holds his hands up, device up and away blinking a 15-minute timer; he inwardly curses. “Hi, hello, I’m not here to hurt you or steal anything, I swear.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t get far with either I can assure you.”

Hongjoong cringes against that same fear Scientist Seonghwa™ attempted to explain away. Touching yourself—your alternate universe self—isn’t going to cause any catastrophic world collapsing singularity or explosion, he’d said. Hysterically, Hongjoong wonders what happens if your alternate universe self stabs you in the neck.

The Hongjoong of this particular universe is redheaded, box dye red, and a little flinty in the eyes. And older. And possibly has more ear piercings than Hongjoong can count. “So, who are you, Mr. Not-a-Thief? And how did you get passed Eunjung at the front desk?”

Hongjoong keeps his hands up. “I didn’t go by the front desk.”

“So, what, you scaled the building?” His other self snorts and presses the letter opener a little harder against his throat, tip digging in harsh against his adam’s apple. “Nice prosthetics by the way, but I haven’t grown my hair out since college.”

“They’re not prosthetics, this is just my face,” Hongjoong whines while fear sweat slides down from his temple to the curve of his cheek. “Look, I know it sounds totally unbelievable but I’m _ you _ from another reality. All I’m doing is trying to find my way home before the asshole who sent me on this wild goose chase steals _ my _ Yunho away.” He jiggles the device in his hand for emphasis, “With this.”

The letter opener twitches the tiniest bit. “_Your _ Yunho?”

“Yes,” Hongjoong gulps. “He’s my dongsaeng. We’re in an idol group.”

His counterpart stares for a split second before bending nearly in half from laughter. “You’re kidding me, an idol group? That’s what you’re going with?” He wipes an amused tear from his cheek. “Alright, fine, I'll humor you. Who else is in this group?”

“It’s me, Seonghwa, Yunho, Mingi, San—”

“San? San is in the group?” The other Hongjoong growls, something dark and nasty lurking in the way he spits San’s name.

“Yeah, Choi San,” Hongjoong blinks, unnerved. “He’s technically Yunho’s roommate and one of my closest frien—”

“Stop, I believe you,” The letter opener is blessedly removed from his neck. “If you were _ really _ trying to imitate me you wouldn’t call San one of your closest ‘friends’.”

Hongjoong rubs his neck in relief. “What? Why? What’s wrong with San?”

“It’s a long story, but all you need to know is he tried to ruin my relationship.” Hongjoong watches the other version of himself drop like dead weight to the extremely plush couch, bounce once, and pat the spot next to him in invitation. “Come sit so I can get a good look at you.”

Hongjoong pauses before he joins him on the couch, finally taking notice of the clothing older Hongjoong is wearing. “Is that Versace?”

“Oh, you _ are _ me,” his alternate self coos and pulls him down into the cushions. They trade stories for a few moments and end up comparing piercings—Hongjoong tries not to appear as virginal as he feels when the Prince Albert comes up. The tongue ring seems like a fun investment though, if he ever had enough time to get through the swelling without performance schedules or singing guides getting in the way.

Eventually the timer goes off, but Hongjoong ignores it in favor of staying a bit longer with this Hongjoong who’s lived a life so different from his own. After a story about airline annoyances, his older self pulls out a cellphone and opens up a gallery for Hongjoong to look through.

Taking the phone from his doppelganger’s fingers is strange, but the weight of the cellphone is familiar at least. He’s pulled open a photo gallery for Hongjoong to go through and see a glimpse of the life this other self is living. This iteration is _ interesting_, to say the least. There are people he doesn’t recognize laughing or smiling with an older version of himself, people he does—is that Seonghwa in a silk robe?—and a weird mixture of clothing sketches piled on top of fabric swatches. There’s a picture of a pair of denim pants covered in fabric paint scrawls that remind him _ so much _ of something he tried to make, once, that his chest aches with the need to be _ home_.

Several pictures of a design studio later, Hongjoong comes across a picture of a flushed and smiling Yunho, cheek squished against this universe’s Hongjoong’s pursed mouth with a glaringly pink drink half in the frame.

The Yunho of this particular universe isn’t so different from Hongjoong’s own. He’s older, obviously, but he still has the same goofy smile. He has the same hair. The same heart shaped mouth that disappears when he laughs. 

Hongjoong, the older and more worldly version of himself, nudges him gently with an elbow. “Close your mouth unless you want to collect flies.”

Hongjoong snaps his mouth closed while heat crawls over his cheeks. “That would be your fault for having flies in the first place.”

Older him shrugs unconcerned. “That picture is from our honeymoon in Italy by the way.” Startled, Hongjoong chokes on an inhale while this iteration of himself sighs dreamily. “Three months of the most acrobatic sex of my _ life_.”

“Oh god, please don’t,” Hongjoong begs, “I can’t think of my dongsaeng doing..._ that_.”

“What? Sex? Dude, you _ should_, he’s bendy as hell.” His doppelganger smirks lasciviously. “This one time we were stuck in traffic—”

“Stop, stop, stop!” Hongjoong squeezes his eyes shut and covers his ears in the vain hope it will block out whatever is about to come out of...of _ his _ mouth next. He can hear his own high pitched laughter, feels it pressed into his shoulder when this version of himself leans into him. “Stop, please. _ My _ Yunho is just a baby, he wouldn’t—he’s not interested in—”

The laughter stops, Hongjoong feels delicate fingers grip his chin until he finds himself staring into the hard gaze of his own eyes. “Do you want him to be?”

Hongjoong gulps. “Do I want him to be what?”

“Don’t play coy,” hissed almost against his mouth. “If your Yunho isn’t interested, _ mine _ definitely would be,” Hongjoong watches in fascination as the tongue ring he admired earlier flashes through the gap of his other self’s lips. “We could show you what it’s like...what you’ve been missing out on with your Yunho.” 

It’s…

In all honesty, it’s a tempting offer. The Yunho of his own universe—the one he’s been shamefully attracted to for longer than he’d like to admit even as he’d rather claw his own eyeballs out before he admitted to anything—is more in love with his video games than he is with Hongjoong. Or anyone aside from maybe Mingi. Or San. Or Seonghwa. Literally anyone else, which hurts, but is understandable with how little time he spends in the dorm when he’s absorbed in making music. 

A palm slides over the curve of his knee and Hongjoong does his best not to immediately swallow his tongue. “_I _ could show you.”

“I—”

Whatever was about to come out of his mouth, and Hongjoong can at least admit to himself that it was going to be a mildly enthusiastic ‘okay’, gets interrupted by the sound of a door chime. 

Yunho of this universe announces his return home with a sing-songing, “Honey, I’m home!”

Hongjoong allows himself barely a glimpse of the man coming around the corner of the entryway. Suddenly it all feels like too much because it’s not the same voice. He’s not the same. This _ world _ is not the same.

Yunho gets out confused, “Hey, jagiyah, who is this?” and Hongjoong can’t take it. He slaps the portal device as hard as he can.

**\-------------------**

Hongjoong doesn’t even bother trying to interact with anyone in the next universe. His throat burns with shame almost as hot as his skin that’s starting to feel sunburned from the constant coordinate hopping. Seonghwa had warned him that interdimensional friction, the jump between planes, could take a toll on his body if he did it too quickly.

All Hongjoong wants to do is go _ home_. He wants to go home and hug his group members and his family. He wants to eat late night snacks with Jongho. He wants to come up with horrible rap verses at 4 AM with Mingi and poke fun at Wooyoung’s collection of BTS merch until he goes crying to Seonghwa. 

What was Yunho to him in this universe? A boyfriend? Lover? Husband? Some check mark in an 'other' column but just as important?

Hongjoong wants to tell Yunho he likes him, finally, because clearly the multitude of universes have an agenda for the two of them. Part of him knows it could ruin so much of the carefully cultivated dynamic the group has achieved, but there's a larger part that's warm with the knowledge that it could be a sure thing. He and Yunho could maybe someday kiss over the counter of a busy coffee shop or be openly lovey-dovey behind closed doors of the dorm or run away and get married when they retire from the idol business.

All he has to do is just _say something_.

The timer dings.  
  
Hongjoong takes a deep breath and _wishes_—

**\-------------------**

Heat from the jump subsides and Hongjoong finds himself in the very back of the dorm he left behind what feels like a lifetime ago. The Hongjoong that did this to him is still in the same place as when he’d left, semi crouched over a kitchen chair where Yunho is staring at the empty seat with blank eyes.

“Oh thank fuck, I’m back,” Hongjoong nearly collapses to the ground with relief and throws the portal device as far away from himself as he can. The sound gets the attention of the room and Hongjoong is greeted by the distrusting gaze of seven members along with the pale, thin lipped, almost apologetic one coming from his own face.

Yunho is the first to speak with a tremulous, “Hyung, is it...you?”

His voice sounds right this time. Not older, not younger, not angry. Hongjoong’s chest goes tight with how much he missed it. “It’s me.”

“Tell us something only our Hongjoong would know,” Yunho begs. His doppelganger sits heavily on the ground. Hongjoong feels sorry for him now that he understands what this man has lost and can never regain.

“Remember that time I played a trick on you guys and said I was going to Dubai? And Yunho locked himself in the bathroom for an hour to cry?” Seonghwa and Yeosang cling to each other, arms wrapped around each other’s torso to keep them steady. Hongjoong keeps a careful eye on the imposter’s face as he looks away from them with a tiny frown. Ah. “Fuck you, Mingi, I’d leave leadership to Jongho.”

“Okay, yeah, that checks out,” Mingi laughs through snotty tears as the lot of them descend on Hongjoong’s shoulders to welcome him home. 

Hongjoong basks in the familiarity of people he loves, of the people he considers his home away from home. “How long was I gone?”

“Only a minute or two,” Wooyoung sniffles against his shoulder.

Hongjoong presses a closed mouthed kiss to Wooyoung’s forehead. “Then quit crying, you big baby, I was barely gone long enough for you to miss me.” Several devastated noises get muffled into his shirt. 

Yunho clings to his side like an overgrown weeping koala. “We had no idea if you could even come back,” his fingers clutch hard at Hongjoong’s waist. He doesn’t move away even when everyone else wipes their tears and circle back to glare down at the dejected lump of universe traveling idiocy on their floor.

“So what do we do about _ him_?” Jongho folds his arms.

Hongjoong rubs Yunho’s back, gives him a brief side hug before disentangling himself from his hold and going over to pick up the device. He drops it in the other Hongjoong’s lap, making sure they don’t touch and that they’re far enough apart he’s not in danger of being zapped again. “Go home and stay home. Your Yunho is _ gone_,” his other self flinches hard, “but there’s someone waiting for you that loves you just as much if you’d let him.”

Yunho makes a quiet noise in his throat Hongjoong does his best to ignore. Might as well rip the bandaid off in one go and deal with the fallout later. 

With his head hung low, the Hongjoong of Neo-Seoul chokes out, “But...that would be betraying him. I’ve spent all this time trying to bring him back—”

“You can’t.” Hongjoong tells him point blank, unwilling to pull any punches because this man needs to hear it from someone. Especially since the Seonghwa he’s got waiting back home sure as shit won’t. “And it wouldn’t be betraying him, you’d just be moving on. Yunho wouldn’t want you to be this miserable for so long over an ideal. He’d want you to be happy.”

In the background, he can hear Seonghwa gently shuffling the rest of the members into their rooms. He sends a silent thank you to his hyung for knowing when to clear a room. 

Yunho didn’t get the memo, or just ignored it altogether, and adds in, “He’s right. I don’t know what you two went through, but I know if something ever happened to me I wouldn’t want Hongjoong-hyung to be sad about it forever. Be happy. For my sake.”

Hongjoong of the multiverse finally breaks down into heaving, desperate sobs. “I’ve loved him for so long, what if I forget what he looks like? What if I forget what he sounds like or how he made me feel?”

“You won’t,” Hongjoong drops down to hold his doppelganger’s hands gently. He can’t imagine what he’s going through but hopes the show of support eases the strain. “What you two have transcends time and space. I mean, I went through multiple realities and we were together in every one of them.” Yunho sucks in a sharp breath and Hongjoong ignores that, too. “You’ll _ never _ forget. You’ll just remember him fondly.”

The man sobs harder until Yunho, with Hongjoong’s help, gets him standing upright and gently cradles his head against his chest. “I’m not a replacement, no one can be that for you, but maybe if I can say goodbye _ for _ him you can find some semblance of closure.”

Alternate universe Hongjoong heaves a shaky breath. Another, and another, until he finally manages to say, “I love you. I’ll always love you,” Another choking breath and, “I’m _ so sorry_, but I love Seonghwa _ too_.”

“That’s okay, it’s alright,” Yunho cries back, they’re all crying a little bit, “I love you too. Please just be happy and let me go.”

Hongjoong expects to feel jealous, but mostly he feels wrung out and empty and like he needs twelve thousand showers to get the grime of different realities out of his pores. Multiverse Hongjoong goes home with a watery smile and another apology to the both of them. 

The silence in his absence is awkward. Hongjoong opens his mouth to say something—to say anything—but thinks better of it. It’s one thing to sort of admit to a multidimensional crush and another to act on it.

Hongjoong leaves Yunho in the living room to hole himself up in the bathroom instead. He takes the longest hot shower of his life, long enough for the heat to turn cool until he’s nearly shivering. Though at this point it could be anywhere from the rapidly cooling drops of water raining down on his shoulders to the cowardice turning his veins to ice.

San greets him in the hall and nudges him in the direction of his own shared room. “I’m going to crash with Yeosang and Wooyoung. You need to talk to him.”

Hongjoong contemplates running but there’s no portal to jump through this time. He sighs. “Yeah, I know.” San raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Thank you, San-ie.”

He finds Yunho curled up in the dark feigning sleep beneath his comforter. Hongjoong shoos away the nerves roiling in his gut to slip in next to him and cuddles up to Yunho’s side.

“Do you think they’ll be happy?” Whispered at him from the roll of blankets.

“I’d like to think so,” Hongjoong stares at the underside of San’s bunk and tries to keep his mind from racing, “with time.”

Yunho rolls over. His face is tinged pink, the worst of Hongjoong’s nerves finally settle down into something resembling butterflies. 

“Hyung, do you—do you think _ we’ll _ be happy?” Fingers Hongjoong is familiar with thread through his own and he’s missed this. He’s missed _ this _ Yunho who he knows like the back of his hand. This Yunho who he’s watched perfect dance moves after only minutes of practice. This particular Yunho who he likes—_loves _ with most of his heart. 

Hongjoong grips Yunho’s hand back. “Yeah. I think we will.” 

Yunho blows out a careful breath, a wet heat along Hongjoong’s chin, and hides his heated face in his neck. “Hyung, I like you.”

“I like you, too.” Hongjoong rewards him for his bravery, because Yunho is always the brave one, with a kiss to his cheek and the corner of his mouth. “Let’s talk in the morning, okay?” Yunho nods before burying his nose in the juncture where neck meets shoulder. “We don’t have to worry about all of that right now.”

“You’re right,” Yunho agrees, yawns and slings a leg over his hips to pull Hongjoong closer to his body. “We have the rest of our lives.”

Hongjoong hides a grin against Yunho’s hair. 

“All of them.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- Ash <3


End file.
